However, quasi-monopolies can only be established under two conditions: (1) The product is an innovation for which there exists (or can be induced to exist) a reasonably large number of willing buyers; and (2) One or more powerful states are willing to use state power to prevent (or at least limit) the entry of other producers into the market. In short, quasi-monopolies can only exist if the market is not “free” from state involvement.
We have come to call such quasi-monopolized products “leading products.” They are “leading” in the sense that they determine a large percentage of the world-system’s economic activity—in their own right, and via their forward and backward linkages. Whenever such quasi-monopolies are established, there follows an expansion of “growth” throughout the world-economy, and the times are perceived overall as times of “prosperity.” Such periods are generally periods of high levels of global employment because of the personnel needs of the producers of both the quasi-monopoly and their forward and backward linkages and because of the consumption expenditures of the employed personnel. And while some parts of the world-system and some groups within it no doubt do better than others, for most persons and groups this period of overall growth in production is a situation in which a “rising tide lifts all boats.”
The state can do many things to create and preserve such a quasi-monopoly. It can enact it legally, via a system of patents, or other forms of protecting so-called intellectual property. It can offer direct assistance to the quasi-monopolized industry, especially in research and development. It can be a major purchaser, often at inflated prices. It can use its geopolitical strength to try to prevent infringements of such quasi-monopolies by putative producers in other countries.
The advantages of a quasi-monopoly do not last forever. The systemic problem for the producers is that such quasi-monopolies are self-liquidating over time. Again the reason is simple. If such quasi-monopolies are so profitable, obviously other producers will try very hard to enter the market to share in the benefits. There are many ways to do this. If the basis of the quasi-monopoly is some new technology that is being kept secret, they can try either to steal the secret or to duplicate it. If they are being kept out of the market by the geopolitical strength of the country by which the quasi-monopoly is being protected, they can try to marshal alternative geopolitical strength to counter this. They can mobilize anti-monopolistic sentiments inside the enforcing country.
In addition, if one controls a quasi-monopoly, the most immediate concern is to avoid work stoppages, since this involves a major loss of capital, irrecoverable if the other producers in an oligopoly do not suffer simultaneously from work stoppages. This gives workers a major weapon in their never-ending search for better conditions. In such situations, the producers consequently often find that concessions to workers cost them less than work stoppages. Over time, however, this means a creeping increase in the costs of labor, which reduces the overall margin of profit.
One way or another, other potential producers can wear down the ability of the producers of the leading products to maintain the quasi-monopoly. Up to now, it seems to have taken an average of 25–30 years to do this. But, whatever the length of protection for the leading industry, sooner or later there comes a point at which the quasi-monopoly is significantly breached. And this breach brings with it, as predicted by the heralds of capitalism, a lowering of prices. The lowering of prices may be beneficial to the purchasers but it is of course negative for the sellers. What had been a profitable leading product has become a more competitive, much less profitable product on the world scene.
What can the producers do? One alternative is to trade the advantage of low transaction costs for lower production costs. This usually involves the shifting of primary production locations from one or more “core” locations to other parts of the world-system where “historic” labor costs are lower. Persons in these new locations for production may perceive and hail this entry into the world production nexus as national “development.” It is more properly seen as trickle-down transfer of erstwhile (but no longer) superprofitable industries.
Relocation of industries is only one kind of response to the changed situation. Producers in erstwhile leading industries can try to maintain some part of this production in countries where they were historically located by specializing in a niche subproduct, one that is more difficult to reproduce quickly elsewhere. They can also negotiate with their workforce to obtain the lowering of remuneration (in all its multiple forms) by wielding the threat of still more relocation of industry, and hence still greater unemployment for the workforce in the previous location. In general, the ability of the working strata to defend their advantages gained in the period of expansion of the world-economy is severely called into question by this increase in the competitiveness of the world market.
They can also, in part or in whole, transfer their search for capital from the production (and even the commercial) sphere, and concentrate on profits in the financial sector. Today we speak of such “financialization” as though it were an invention of the 1970s. But it is actually a very long-standing practice in all Kondratieff B-phases. As Braudel has shown, the truly successful capitalists have always been those who reject “specialization” in industry, commerce, or finance, preferring to be generalists who move between these processes as opportunities dictate.
How does one make money in the financial sphere? The basic mechanism is to lend money, which has to be repaid with interest. The most rewarding debts to the lenders are those in which the debtor overborrows and therefore can only repay the interest but not the capital. This leads to a recurrent and ever-increasing income to the lender until the debtor is overwhelmed (bankrupt).
Such a financial loan mechanism does not create new real value, not even new capital. It essentially reallocates existing capital. It also requires that there be ever new circles of debtors to replace those who are overwhelmed, in order thereby to maintain the flow of lending and indebtedness. These financial processes can be very profitable to those who are located on the lending side of the equation.
The lending-indebtedness chain does however have one downside from the point of view of the “normal” operation of the capitalist system. It eventually exhausts effective demand for all production. This is both an economic and a political danger to the system, which requires therefore a return to equilibrium, that is, a return to a situation in which capital is accumulated primarily through new production. Schumpeter has shown very clearly how this comes about economically. An invention is transmogrified into an innovation, which results in the emergence of a new leading product that permits the renewed expansion of the world-economy.
The politics of such a transmogrification have been a matter of much debate. It seems to require a strengthening of the position of the working classes in the class struggle. It may require a willingness of some part of the producing classes to accede to this stronger position of the working strata—a sacrifice of short-run individual profits in the interests of the longer-run collective profits of the producing classes.
This pattern of expansion and contraction of capitalism is only possible because capitalism is not a system that is located within a single state, but is rather ensconced in a world-system, larger by definition than any single state. If these processes were occurring in a single state, there would be nothing to prevent the holders of state power from appropriating the surplus value, which would remove (or at least considerably reduce) the incentive of entrepreneurs to develop new products. On the other hand, were there no states whatsoever within the range of the market, there would be no way to obtain quasi-monopolies. It is only if capitalists are located in a “world-economy”—one that has a multiplicity of states within it—that entrepreneurs can pursue the endless accumulation of capital.